Earlier in the week, Blocky and I visited my office for a quick drop-off and pick-up to return library books. Blocky insisted that we stay in the office long enough for him to help me grade papers. Luckily for me, Blocky doesn't yet know what student work looks like, so I handed him a stack of the used-on-one-side print-outs that I keep for scrap paper and a sharpie so he could grade papers. He's getting pretty good at circling various words and putting question marks next to them before putting a random number at the top of the paper. His students had better hope he's grading out of 35 because that's the highest grade he ever writes.

Some of the above reminds me: I was a TA during the time my daughter was 2-4. Never once did she have any interest in the papers I was grading. She did like walking down our bookshelf, and tipping one social theory or methods volume onto the living room rug, however.

Barely 15 minutes goes by in my house without the following conversation."Mom, can we get a snake / lizard / dog / breeding pair of wooly bears?""No, dear. I can barely handle the pets we have.""But I'll take care of this one!"

We have plenty of animals, but not an excessive amount. 2 cats, 1 large fish tank, 2 small betta tanks, and 1 small parrot. The parrot was a stray, so he's way more pet than I ever wanted. The parrot is amazing, but good lord is hu a handful*.

So, sea monkeys, no big deal.

Coconut #1 (9) wanted to set it up all by herself, because she wanted to "prove" to me that she could do a pet by herself. Because she wants fire belly toads. Problem - the Sea Monkeys need an outlet and a surface on which to put them, and the package instructions say they need sunlight. I told her to "handle it". It was all... MOM! what do I stir this with, and MOM! Can I put this here? MOM can I unplug this lamp for the sea monkeys... And right back at her, "You figure it out, dear. Remember, you're doing the sea monkeys."

As to why I agreed to the sea monkeys, now that's a story but I'm not sharing that one.

* Regarding the use of hu - it's an $85 DNA test to sex a parrot. We do not know the bird's sex.

Macaroon, some parrots (like cockatoos) can be sexed by the color of their eyes, and if you have a good avian vet s/he can do so by probing the cloaca. I'll agree that there's not much point to it. If she ever lays an egg you'll know for sure. And, if it's old enough and never does, that should be a clue, too.

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You must realize that a university cannot educate you. You must do that for yourself, although a college or university is the place where it is likely that you can study most efficiently.

Macaroon, some parrots (like cockatoos) can be sexed by the color of their eyes, and if you have a good avian vet s/he can do so by probing the cloaca. I'll agree that there's not much point to it. If she ever lays an egg you'll know for sure. And, if it's old enough and never does, that should be a clue, too.

We have a good avian vet, and our parrot cannot be sexed by any method other than DNA. Behavior-wise, we guess male, but that's not really good enough.

I remember thinking that Mothers' Day was a special day for Mom when everything would revolve around making Mom feel happy and cherished by her doting, adoring family.

If Mothers' Day looked like my fantasy, here is what would happen. I'd wake up in the morning to the aroma of brewing coffee and a simmering, delicious breakfast prepared by the children. They would serve said breakfast and coffee to me and allow me to read the Sunday paper in peace, with no bickering over who gets the comics first. Then Mr. T_F would assiduously and completely clean up the mess they had made. It's supposed to be a nice day tomorrow, so after some leisurely relaxation, I'd go for a short run, accompanied by Mr. T_F and any child who wanted to come along. Then we would pack up for a long bike ride through the countryside and by the river, where we would stop for a picnic lunch prepared by my family members. I would neither put the bike rack on the car nor conduct a search for missing bike helmets. Maybe sometime during the day, I'd get to take in a baseball game played by one of my sons, with no rushing to or from the game involved. Then we would come home, and I would stretch out on the couch and watch soccer on TV with beer in hand while Mr. T_F prepared steaks on the grill. After a delicious dinner, he and the children would clean up while I surfed the web. They would then present me with a decadent chocolate cake and whatever art projects they had made to commemorate the day.

Here is what will happen. My alarm will go off at 7:30. I will jump out of bed, shower, feed the cats, and make coffee. I'll then rush upstairs to roust the kids out for Sunday school. After a lot of shouting and bickering and drama, we will all be ready to go at 8:45, except that someone can't find his/her Sunday school bag, which will delay us until 8:50 (because that's how long it will take me to find it). We'll rush to Sunday school, where I will sit through yet another children's service with youngest because Mr. T_F volunteers and needs that time to prepare. After the service is over, maybe we'll go grab some coffee somewhere? Good goddess no! It's Mothers' Day; every restaurant will be a zoo. So we'll drink the crappy coffee provided at the Temple at $1 a cup. Then Mr. T_F will leave early to take eldest to play in a baseball game, leaving me to sit through a meeting informing parents about the Temple's practices regarding bar/bat mitzvah. (Yes, we just did this with child #1 and already know the process intimately. This is for child #2.) Then I will sit through the rest of Sunday school, looking out at the bright sunshine. When the kids get out, we'll run to the car and rush up to the ballfield, probably in time to watch the last half inning of the game, during which, inevitably, my child will not have an at-bat. Then we will bundle into the van and drive 30 minutes up to MIL and SIL for a Mothers' Day get-together. (Can't have them come down to us, because my nieces both have AP exams this week and need to be at home Sunday night so that they can study for them. Having to be in the car 45 minutes each way would be really burdensome and stressful for them.) At the get-together, we will probably have dessert (which I'll have to make tonight, sh!t!) and coffee and sit inside while the kids play outside. Eventually we will leave. We'll probably get back to the house at around 6 or 7 PM, at which point Mr. T_F will look at me and say, "what do you want to do about dinner?" The day will end at approximately 11:00 PM, which is when I expect eldest to finish all that homework he has forgotten and will suddenly recall at 9:00 PM.

At least they won't have time to mess up the kitchen.

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You people are not fooling me. I know exactly what occurred in that thread, and I know exactly what you all are doing.